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All the verses of the “Seven Hundred Elegant Verses” (Aryasaptasati) are single stanzas in the same meter, Arya. The names of meters in Sanskrit are feminine and have meanings appropriate to describing an often attractive woman. The word arya means “noble lady” and thus has connotations of class and style. Since Go·vardhana is so fond of puns and suggestion, we have chosen to bring out this suggestion in translating the title of the collection. Indeed, nothing about Go·vardhana is simple. The title indicates that the collection consists of “seven centuries”; this echoes the similar collection of “Seven Hundred” (Sattasai) by Hala which is Go·vardhana’s model. Confusingly, however, Go·vardhana’s collection has more than seven hundred verses, for the “seven centuries” are preceded (for no obvious reason) by fifty-four verses; these we have numbered separately and called Prelude.

Like Hala’s Prakrit “Seven Hundred,” the bulk of this Sanskrit “Seven Hundred Elegant Verses” is only formally ordered. The seven hundred stanzas are divided into thirtyfour groups merely on the basis of their initial syllables or vowels. (Eleven letters of the Sanskrit alphabet are not used to begin a stanza, although only three of these cannot actually appear at the beginning of a word: n, n, and n.) To the Indian audience familiar with the genres and conventions of Sanskrit poetry, this juxtaposition of unrelated material would not have caused any problems. However, from this chaotic arrangement groups of verses can be extricated that share similar situations, people, or ideas (some such groups could be called “genres”), and this will throw further light ________